By Mark Baber
March 24 – The FIFA mission to Nairobi, aimed at achieving a resolution of the crisis bedevilling Kenyan football, has by all accounts ended in triumph, with agreement between the parties on the way forward out of the crisis.
The FIFA delegation including Ghana FA President Kwesi Nyantakyi (pictured), Ashford Mamelodi, FIFA’s development officer of Southern and Eastern Africa, and Primio Carvaro, head of FIFA Football Associations, held a marathon meeting with officials from the Kenyan Football Federation (FKF) and Kenyan Premier League (KPL) succeeding in getting agreement on how to handle the major disagreements leading to the recent court case and (now lifted) injunction.
According to Nyantakyi it has been agreed that the FKF will withdraw its court case, that for this season the current KPL, which will be known as the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Premier League, will consist of the existing 16 teams, that next season it will be expanded to 18 teams through a process of relegation and promotion on sporting merit and that all broadcast contracts will be renegotiated for 2016.
According to Nyantakyi a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed between the FKF and KPL in June 2015, with FIFA communicating back in due course on a detailed roadmap.
The agreement is appears very much in line with the concrete proposals made by the FIFA task force led by Robert Niemann.
Whilst FKF chief Sam Nyamweya will no doubt be pleased that his team, Shabana FC, will have a good chance of promotion to the Premier League next season, the overall outline of the deal and the acceptance that the KPL will continue as the top tier league is a testament to the successful strategy of the KPL administrators in sticking firmly to the FIFA statutes throughout the dispute.
Although the agreement has been met with relief in local media, previous FIFA-led mediation efforts in Kenya have fallen apart and there is likely to be a bumpy road ahead as the MOU is negotiated, as the FIFA Ethics Committee continues its long-winded deliberations over the apparent favouring of Shabana by the FKF and as FKF elections loom later in the year.
Nyantakyi, whose stature in the world game will certainly be enhanced if the deal sticks, has vowed to follow up on the issues agreed in order to ensure they are implemented.
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